Name: Blinder And Spiker
Type: PvE
Category: Spiker/Support
Attributes: Hammer Mastery 16 (12 + 3 + 1)
Strength 12 (11 + 1)
Tactics 7 (6 + 1)
Skills Set:
Counter Blow, Belly Smash, Crushing Blow, Irresistible Blow, Flurry/To the Limit, Flourish {E}, Healing Signet/I Will Survive/Endure Pain, Ressurection Signet.
Summary:
This build is meant to be a complement to the standard Tactics warrior who uses an axe or sword. The Blinder and Spiker is meant to deliver quick, sustained spike damage. A second function of the Blinder and Spiker is to keep as many of the opponent's warriors or rangers blinded.
This build relies heavily on Flourish to keep energy levels up and recharge times down so that Irresistible blow, Crushing blow, and Belly Smash can be spammed.
You will notice that some hammer attacks (i.e., hammer skills) do significantly more damage than regular attacks. For e.g., your regular attacks may do between 15 and 35 dmg on some enemies, but ur hammer attack skills do 55-120 dmg. Therefore, the key to being an effective hammer spiker using this build is to use and re-use you hammer attacks.
1. Begin the fight by going after the other team's warriors or rangers using Flurry or To the Limit to quickly get the 4 strikes of adrenaline required for Counter Blow.
2. Use Irresistable Blow on enemy while waiting for adrenaline. Once Counter Blow is charged, use it on a enemy that is attacking (make sure they are not using a preparation or healing sig at the time or you won't knock them down). Once the enemy is knocked down, quickly use Belly Smash to blind that and other foes in the area. Now follow this up with Crushing Blow and Irresistible Blow. Your energy should be around 5 now, so quickly use Flourish before Irresistible Blow is recharged. This should give you + 18 energy.
3. Now use Irresistible Blow, then Counter Blow, Belly Smash, Crushing Blow, Irresistible Blow, and Flourish. You should gain + 18 energy again. Repeat this step over and over.
The time between each usage of Flourish should be less than 20 seconds. If you have to wait longer than 20 seconds between each time you use Flourish because you are not low on energy, then you are not spamming Irreristible Blow and Crushing Blow fast enough.
If you are going after casters or if you want to kill quick, don't bother with belly smash. Use Crushing Blow instead when they are knocked down to inflict a deep wound. Using only Crushing Blow and Irreristible Blow and not Belly Smash will result in + 12 energy gain from using Flourish.
Make sure you use Flourish while your attack skills are recharging to get the most out of it. For e.g., if Belly Smash and Crushing Blow are recharging, and your energy is at 8, don't use Flourish yet, rather, use Irresistible Blow, and then use Flourish (once your energy is at 5, which shouldn't take long).
Belly Smash has the longest recharge of any Warrior attack skill (30 secs). Hamstring comes in second with 15 secs. Flourish, since it has a recharge time of 10, effectively reduces the recharge time of this skill to about 10 seconds, which means every 12 or 13 seconds you should be able to blind some of your foes. Blinding with Belly Smash will last for 10 secs.
Crushing Blow won't do as much damage as Irresistible Blow but it will do a lot more than your regular attacks, and it has a 10 sec recharge time which means it should still be recharging when you use Flourish.
Irresitible Blow is the foundation of this build. Use it often. If the enemy happens to use a stance to block or evade, they get knocked down
Armor and Weapons: The highest level armor you can get (Wyvern, Ascalon, Knight, etc.). I prefer these higher defense armors to Gladiator's armor when using a hammer due to the lack of a shield. The highest vigor and absorption runes you can find.
A max dmg hammer, with + 15% dmg over 50% health. For maximum damage attach a Sundering or max Vampiric (5:1) hammer haft and a Hammer grip of hammer mastery + 1 (20% chance). Hammer accessories are flexible, however, and you can use grip of fortitude or furious haft or whatever you prefer.
Notes & Concerns:
Timing is important in using this build well. Make sure that at least 2 of your attack skills are recharging before you use Flourish. Otherwise, it's not worth using (except to quickly recharge a skill, if you need it).
Counter Blow will recharge fairly quickly so you will be able to knock down often. However, it is the only knock down skill. So you won't be able to keep a caster on their ass for very long, but you will be able to drop their health pretty fast.
If you're fighting large creatures that cannot be knocked down (Giants, Pinesouls, etc.) then forget about Belly Smash. You will not be able to blind, unless you find a smaller opponent (e.g., ice imp or azure shadow) to knock down and then hit with Belly Smash. However, this build is still very effective without being able to blind. Just spam irresistible blow and crushing blow until your energy is about 4. Then use Flourish. Repeat.
The build is low on defense, so you may want to consider trading Flurry/To the Limit for a defensive/healing skill, or even something from your secondary. You can take the attribute points out of tactics or strength if you need it. Let your monk know you're more offense oriented - they may have healing seed
U could drop tactics down to zero and strength down to 11, and put those points into one attribute from your secondary profession to get it up to level 8, and then pick 2 healing spells from that attribute.In my experience, I do more damage with this build over the duration of a typical high level monster fight (Southern Shiverpeaks and Sorrow's Furnace for e.g.,) than a Berseker Stance/Devastating Hammer/Heavy Blow/Mighty Blow build or an Earth Shaker/Aftershock build. I find the hammer a little slow for an adrenaline-based build where a skill drains all the adrenaline (Hammer Bash or Heavy Blow). And the two pips of energy a warrior gets doesn't allow me to spam Irresistible Blow as much as I would like.
This build can have a rough time due to energy denial by an enemy. The reason being that you need to have a couple of skills recharging before you can derive any benefit from Flourish. To have these skills recharging, you have to first use them, which means that you should wait for your energy to be at 12 or more before you can use 2 attack skills, followed by Flourish.
I hope ppl realize that Flourish is only affected by energy based attack skills. It does not care about adrenaline based skills.
Improvements, comments, etc. welcome.
Credit: I would like to credit my love of badass bruiser characters, beginning with Zangief of Street Fighter. Thanks to the others who put out builds that got me interested in the topic of build creation. Thanks to my obsession with hammers for ensuring I'm well equipped but poorly dressed.
